"Oh, please don't ask me to go down," she implored excitedly; "you seem to have forgotten!"
"Forgotten what?"
"That dish of water," she faltered with changing colour, "and then he saved me so cleverly from being trampled on! If he had ridden over me I wouldn't have cared, as it would have made things square; but as it is, can't you understand that I'd rather die than see him?" said she in the exaggerated language of the day, and burying her face in her hands.
"I can better understand that you are dying to see him," I returned, pulling her head on to my shoulder; "but never mind, you'll see him some other day, and it will all come straight in time."
I forbore to press her farther, but that Ernest might not be too discouraged I gave him some splendid oranges Andrew had picked for me, and said—
"Miss Dawn kept these for you, but as she is not visible this afternoon I am going to make the presentation."
His face perceptibly brightened, and also noticeable was the brisk way he terminated his call upon learning that there was no prospect of seeing Dawn that day. I watched him bounding along the path to the bridge carrying the oranges in his handkerchief, and watched also by another pair of eyes from an upstairs window.
Carry left us during that week, and as she had now fixed her wedding-day the tax of wedding presents had to be met. Grandma, in bidding her good-bye, presented her with a generous cheque, and paid her a fine compliment.
"I wish you well wherever you go, for I never saw another young woman—unless it was meself when I was young—who could lick you at anythink."
Carry's departure put the cap on our quietude at Clay's, but soon a movement transpired to stir the stagnation.